5 Tips to Make Web Designing Smooth and Hassle Free

Websites cater to varied needs, that of businesses they represent, users who find them after online searches, potential and existing customers, employees, and many others who stumble upon them unknowingly.

Great websites are built around a target audience and a market niche. There is no ambiguity about a strong website. It is easy for the visitor to understand what the site is about and find what he is looking for. This is one of the hallmarks of a successful website.

Ease of use, simplicity and clean layout, though they sound simple, are not easy to achieve. As soon as you create the framework, design the layout, and keep adding the absolutely necessary components, the simple design becomes complex in no time. And to make something that is complex appear beautiful, simple and uncluttered, you need to employ the best designing tactics.

Here are a few web designing tips to help you design a beautiful and useful website, without headaches and heartburns.

Web Designing: Be Organized and Structured

Organization and structure are of vital importance when designing a website.

Organization will help a user navigate his way easily without getting confused. A cleanly-organized site will follow web designing conventions that a user will be familiar with.

Hierarchy will help a user spot the main and important sections, and navigate to relevant content. Readability becomes even more important when we consider that a majority of Internet users just scan a website to determine whether it is useful to them or not.

A smart web design will break up content into bold headlines and small chunks of content that are informative and concise.

Quality websites use contrast between text and background color to improve readability. A dark background with dull color text will only drive away visitors or give them a headache.

Web Designing: Pick Correct Color Scheme

Websites need to be visually appealing and a great color scheme will help with that.

When designing websites for companies, many designers choose to stick to the color scheme of the brand logo. It helps in maintaining brand identity and appeal, and makes it easy to build and execute brand promotion campaigns.

If there is no existing color scheme to build on, browse the Web and study sites that catch your fancy. Appealing sites have great color combinations that gel well, spark chemistry and speak to one another.

Avoid garish color combinations and colors that blend into each other.

Choose a limited set of colors for the general UI, text and backgrounds. It is best if you maintain uniformity and consistency with the color scheme used in the user interface. Look up quality sites like Facebook, Google or Airbnb and you will see that there is continuity or predictability across the UI. But graphics, illustrations, videos and photographs are not bound by any color restrictions, and you can let your creative juices flow.

Web Designing: Devote Time for Planning

Most designers work in agencies where there are too many deadlines and time schedules to adhere to. It may become impossible to spend more time than absolutely necessary on planning.

Great designers say that they put in plenty of work hours into planning the basic essentials of a website. This is necessary to design a clutter-free and simple user experience.

The core content or the very essential message that a website needs to convey should be uncovered and written down for reference. Everything else you do should do justice to this core idea and help communicate it well and in the most appealing manner to the user.

Also, map out user flow in the beginning and plan the website to maximize it. If a designer keeps user flow in mind, it will be far easier to focus on the right points and design the project effectively.

Web Designing: Ensure the Client Is on the Same Page as You

Web designers either passionately agree or strongly disagree on this point. We at web designing Utah agree on this point.

Many a time, clients are clueless about how web design differs from web development, and give wrong inputs and have misplaced expectations.

It is not necessary that you involve your client in every step of designing a website, but ensure that he/she is happy with your core concept or idea, and green lights the prototype.

In web designing, time is money and you cannot spend a lot of it educating your client. You must collaborate with your client and understand what the business and marketing requirements are. There is no doubt that he/she understands the business the best and can help you get to know the target audience better.

Mood boards help you convey your visual thoughts in the best possible manner to the client. They help convey the intended look and feel of a website to a client, and help in planning the designing process better. Crafting mood boards also help you put down what you have in mind and assess whether your visual thinking is in line with the business’ needs.

Designers vouch by the fact that mood boards help win pitches and get quick sign-offs.

Build the style or mood around a main/central image. The central image is also the core theme or the mood of the website, and it should be supported by smaller supporting images, illustrations or graphics. If clients are not able to understand the meaning of an image or why it is there, you need to replace it with something more meaningful and achieve a character and style that is in sync with the business.

Web Designing: Be Friends with Web Developers

Your job does not end after you furnish the style sheets to the web development team. Ensure that you collaborate and communicate, and see to it that your designs are developed, implemented and supported properly.

Many a time, developers will have valuable inputs to provide on designing. So if possible, check with them in the initial stages and validate your vision and ideas. This will also help in better implementation.

Clean codes, a fabulous user interface and good backend programming are necessary for a fast-loading and user-friendly website. And it is the web developer who is usually responsible for these. So, be passionate about your design and team up with the developer for the best execution.

Conclusion

There are several things that go into building a mind-blowing website, and creative vision and innovative designing ability are just a couple of them. Ensure that you follow all aspects of designing and development, and collaborate and communicate with your team and all stakeholders effectively to get the best results.

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Small Biz, High Tech: 4 IT Hacks for Small Businesses

Running a small business is a constant dance between producing a product or service for people at a cost that compares to or beats your competition. One of the costs is information technology or IT. A small business that can find inexpensive and powerful options in this area can create an advantage for their business in their marketplace. Here are 4 IT hacks that can help your small business be more profitable.

IT Hacks: Organize Better Meetings

Increasing a client base can be a challenge for a small business. Meeting with potential clients face-to-face is limited by geography. With technology today, there are simple ways that a business can organize a meeting on teleconference that will allow for face-to-face interaction. There are individual video conferencing tools like Skype that allow for individuals to connect face-to-face across the world. There are also online meeting programs that allow presentations and ideas to be shared over an unlimited number of locations. Low cost products like Go To Meeting or Any Meeting are two meeting software suites that allow for powerful presentations.

Keep Your Office Running Smoothly

Organization is the key to success in any business. Fortunately today there are software suits that can help manage your schedules. For example AdvancedMD is a medical software suite that allows a small office to organize the scheduling of patients, their records, issue bills, manage patient care and measure the performance of your business. The best part is that once this type of system is set up, it runs with very little maintenance. A small office staff can all access the vital information and provide adequate care for all patients. There are similar management software products for almost any type of office as well.

Take Control of Your Web Properties

Managing and developing your own websites may seem like a daunting task but with the technology available today it shouldn’t be. Developing a functional and well-designed site can be done through the use of WordPress with a minimum of training. Having this skill available opens you up to make changes to a website quickly and at a low cost. It will require paying a hosting fee, but this cost is very minimal compared to paying someone to manage your website. HostGator is a great hosting program that is safe and responsive to questions. The investment in this area can save thousands of dollars over the long term and provide your small business with a website that is more representative of your products and/or services.

Build Relationships through Email

Connecting with you customers is vital for any small business. There are many different options available to help manage your email list depending on price and types of communication you desire. Constant Contact is one of the easiest email marketing suites to use although it has some limitations in function. Get Response and Aweber are high-functioning software suits that make it easy to create and run complex chains of marketing emails. The best part about these products is that once you have it set up, it runs on autopilot. Email lists provide a great opportunity to directly contact your customer base and a business can get their product or service in front of the customers.

Running a small business is an exciting endeavor that can become very profitable. Learning to decrease the IT challenges a company faces will clearly make things run more smoothly. All four of these IT solutions can be managed in house with inexpensive and powerful software programs. Allowing a small business to perform big is the goal of these 4 IT hacks for small business.

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How to Write Good Copy for your Website: A Complete Guide

Do you want to know how to write good copy for your website?

Don’t worry, it’s really not all that hard but it will improve your conversion rates, dwell time and improve your ROI from your digital marketing.

Telling tales

  1. Let’s start at the beginning: does this web development story sound familiar?
  • You agonized over the design of your website
  • You pondered over the product pages
  • You searched high and low for the perfect images
  • You discussed endlessly your digital marketing strategy to drive visitors to your site
  • You pencilled in plenty of budget for PPC

And then your developer calls. It’s time to start ditching the ‘Lorem ipsum’ and populate your site with real copy.

A moment of panicked silence is followed by you dropping the phone and frantically scrabbling around for all the marketing materials you can lay your hands on to purloin phrases and pinch paragraphs from.

Web copy converts

Copy converts. It’s a powerful tool not an afterthought.

What did we think our visitors were going to do when they got to our site: imbue our messages by osmosis and convert into customers by alchemy?

Writing great web copy is absolutely central to your web marketing strategy.

And the truth is that producing effective copy for the web will not happen by cutting and pasting catalogues, sales flyers and corporate brochures.

The good news is it’s easy

The good news is that writing great copy for the web is quite straightforward, and you can learn all you need to know in what follows.

The sad fact is that there are far too many businesses out there that simply don’t create compelling or even readable copy. And there are just as many whose copy fails simply because it has written as if the web were a book or a magazine.

Writing great copy is one thing. Writing great web copy is another thing entirely.

So, let’s show you how easy it is to do it, and you need never run round the office in a blind panic again.

First things first

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The web is not a place for flowery, circuitous introductory paragraphs. If you have something to say, say it first (preferably in bold).

Think of a pyramid. It’s wide at its base until it narrows to a focussed point.

Now turn it on its head. Its point comes first and everything else builds out from this.

This inverted pyramid is how you write for the web. You don’t beat about the bush to get to your point (or key takeaway, marketing message, USP etc.). You beat all the bushes away till there is just this: and then you say it clearly. Straight away.

This tactic is not unique to the web. It’s used by journalists too who always make sure that in their first couple of paragraphs the whole story can be found.

This tactic, though, is especially true for the web. People don’t read web pages: they scan them. Study after study has proved this to be the case.

When we scan we quickly check the top and then let our eye take in what we consider the most important parts of what follows: we do not often read all of the text.

Because people are going to scan your copy you need to make sure they can get the important information and key messages upfront, or they will get lost in the mix.

When people can’t find exactly what they want straight away they vote with their clicks and your bounce rate notches up.

And first things last

Whether you are writing a blog post or a product description it’s still a great idea to wrap things up in a summary at the end of the article. (This is particularly true for longer articles/descriptions).

You could do this using bullet points, with a feature box detailing the main points or in your closing paragraphs.

The scanning eye does not take everything in. There is a good chance it may have missed what is a crucial point when it reaches the end of your page.

By summarising your key points (and maybe even including a link back to where they appeared on the page) you can ensure that people can play catch up on what they have sped past.

Heading in the right direction?

The headline you use is critical in engaging attention. It is also critical for your SEO. Get it right and you have won half the battle. Get it wrong and you have lost the war.

Here’s Brian Clark of Copyblogger on the importance of headline:

“On average, 8 out of 10 people will read headline copy, but only 2 out of 10 will read the rest. This is the secret to the power of the headline.”
(‘Don’t read this or the kitty gets it’ in Copywriting 101)

That’s how important it is.

There isn’t space here to give you a masterclass on crafting the perfect heading, but you can find plenty of tips and tricks in the Copywriting 101 eBook that can be downloaded free at the link above.

(Is it worth it? Is the opportunity to engage 80% of your visitors worth it?)

Here are some quick pointers:

  • Make sure your most important keywords are here:
    just think about what your audience might be searching for
  • Adjectives create interest:
    change ‘Car cleaning guide’ to ‘The modern guide to cleaning and protecting your car’
  • Get them interested: change ‘Car cleaning guide’ to ‘Are you wiping £s off your car’s value every time you clean it?’
  • If social sharing of your content is important to you try to keep your headlines under 65 characters.

 

Write for the scan

There are a number of other things you can do to cater for the scanning eye, but first let’s see it in action.

Typically we scan in an F-pattern:

  • We focus on a couple of sentences at the top of the page
  • Our eye trails down the left side
  • We also quickly glance at a few lines near the middle

Examples of the F pattern found on a corporate About Us page, a product page and a search engine results page (source: Nielsen Norman Group)

Look at how the product page (centre) and the search engine results page (right) are structured with broken up text that aids the scan.

Now look at the corporate About Us page (left), where the large chunks of unbroken text, simply leaves large sections left unread.

So what tricks can you use to encourage the scan?

  • Short paragraphs
  • Clear subheadings
  • Using formatting (like bold, font size or bullet points)
  • Careful use of images

These all, however, allow you to do the same thing: break your text up and divide it into short, clear sections.

Paragraphs

Paragraphs in books and those on web pages are very different beasts.

This is not a paragraph for the web:

Lorem Ipsum is simply dummy text of the printing and typesetting industry. Lorem Ipsum has been the industry’s standard dummy text ever since the 1500s, when an unknown printer took a galley of type and scrambled it to make a type specimen book. It has survived not only five centuries, but also the leap into electronic typesetting, remaining essentially unchanged. It was popularised in the 1960s with the release of Letraset sheets containing Lorem Ipsum passages, and more recently with desktop publishing software like Aldus PageMaker including versions of Lorem Ipsum.

But this is:

Lorem Ipsum is simply dummy text of the printing and typesetting industry.

It has been the industry’s standard dummy text ever since the 1500s, when an unknown printer took a galley of type and scrambled it to make a type specimen book.

This dummy text has even survived the leap into electronic typesetting, remaining essentially unchanged, and even desktop publishing software like Aldus PageMaker now includes versions of Lorem Ipsum.

See the difference?

On the web a sentence can be a paragraph.

Huge chunks of text are like a brick wall to the scanning eye. Text that is broken up helps it do its thing (and forces you to use concise language and simpler sentences).

Subheadings

Subheadings are simply another way to help the scanning eye find what it wants.

Just as a book is divided into chapters you should divide your web pages into subsections that signpost the different points you are making.

And, of course, if you are using heading tags (

,

,

) you will be doing both the scanning eye and your SEO a favour too.

Bullet points and numbered lists

Another way to break up your text is with lists.

Why do bullet points and numbered lists help?

The bullet point or numbered list creates natural breaks in your copy, tends to be short and punchy – which is perfect for inviting a quick scan and they add variety to your layout.

Let me try that again:

Why do bullet points and numbered lists help?

  • They create natural breaks in your copy
  • They tend to be short and punchy – perfect for inviting a quick scan
  • They add variety to your layout

See what I mean?

Keep it simple

It’s important you know your audience. This will affect the sort of content you provide and the language that you use.

Accessibility is the cornerstone of the web. For most businesses it is advisable that they keep their language simple. If you are writing above your audience you will quickly lose them.

Writing simply is not easy. You have to learn to do it.

  • Keep your sentences short: it keeps them simple
  • Strip out technical language and jargon
  • Avoid complicated explanations or break them down into steps
  • If you are writing for a niche: use their language
  • If you are writing for a broad audience: avoid niche terms like the plague

To write simply you are going to need to forget everything they taught you in school. If you find it hard, write how you usually write, and then rewrite for the web.

Be careful where you add personality

Adding personality can bring blogs to life but it can also alienate a customer nearing a buying decision on a money page.

This comes down to brand identity. If your marketing copy has a tone of voice and personality you need to reflect this in your web copy. If it doesn’t: don’t add it.

A bit of personality on your blog posts and other content can really help to bring it to life and gain shares.

Be liberal with your links

Links to other web pages on your site are critical to its success. They are important for your visitors and your SEO.

The eye scans because it is looking quickly for important and relevant information. A link helps the eye realise there may be more relevant information on another page and it helps your visitor to get straight to it.

Links also help you keep things concise. If you go into something in more detail elsewhere there is no need to do so again every time it is mentioned.

Links also let you include a summary at the top of every page with ‘anchors’ to places on the page where this section can be found. How handy is that?

Finally links encourage the search engine spiders to crawl your entire site, leaving no page unturned.

It’s time to put it all into practice

So there you have it: a simple guide to writing great web copy.

There really are no more excuses for taking that corporate brochure and plonking it on the web.

Here are the main things you should make sure you do with your web copy:

  1. Whenever you write say the important things first
  2. If it’s been a long page summarise it at the bottom
  3. Your heading must work for SEO and draw your readers in
  4. Break your text up using short paragraphs, subheadings and formatting
  5. Write simply and avoid jargon
  6. A bit of personality can win the day or lose the visitor – use it carefully
  7. Keep everything clearly linked in

Easy, huh?

Of course, the truth is that this is how the best copy is structured.

Writing copy that persuades and inspires action is another story altogether. And it’s a tale that ends in conversion.

You can find some helpful pointers in this web copywriting guide. But for now you should be happy: you are well on the way to crafting copy that is designed for the web.

And you’ll see immediate results.

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Why Website Experience is Critical to Business Success

Marketers have long postulated that “your website is your best salesperson,” and this statement is probably the best way to describe the importance of having a neat and informative company website that interacts with the audience. Considering the number of internet users who browse the web to find products and services they need, it’s clear why your website needs to provide seamless user experience.

Moreover, user experience can even determine the way people perceive a brand, which is another reason why webmasters should adopt a user-centric approach to building a website. Namely, as confirmed in an earlier research by PEER 1 Hosting, 76% of ecommerce decision makers claim website experience and brand perception are directly related.

Mobile is the next conversion platform

Few years ago, building a mobile-friendly website was rather optional, while today it is an imperative for businesses large and small. Even Google is preparing to roll out a new algorithm that is supposed to affect around 50% of search results according to some estimates. This means that half of the websites out there are still not optimized for mobile display, which translates into lost visits and potential purchases from mobile devices.

Given that today web users increasingly make purchases or calls from smartphones and tablets, mobile website is one of the critical aspects of user experience that needs to be considered. In a survey mentioned above, 35% of respondents pointed that mobile device compatibility contributed to overall business, which clearly points to the importance of this.

Overall design encourages people to complete actions

Once you ensure a visitor can actually land on your website, you need to make it easy for them to navigate across your pages. Here, simplicity is the key because it enables even the first time visitors to easily understand what your website is about and how to get to the specific pages they have been looking for.

Again, different studies on user behavior reveal that if a visitor doesn’t see what he or she has been searching for immediately on the page, they are likely to leave – frustrated. This is why a well-designed company website needs to display information in readable format and ensure every call-to-action or internal link is transparent. Coupled with graphic and textual elements that successfully communicate messages relevant to user’s query, such pages are more likely to drive conversions.

Speed is critical for user retention

Slow loading pages have always been seen as a major negative user experience trigger and are the most important aspect of your website you need to optimize. As reported by Kissmetrics, 47% of users are likely to leave a website if it takes longer than 2 seconds to load, while the research by Ensighten previously proved that this also negatively affects conversion rates.

Therefore, improving page load time is critical to website success and it should be done by writing a clean code, optimizing images for faster load and minimizing HTTP requests. Furthermore, the choice of a local web hosting provider and a scalable plan that supports your growth can be another way to overcome this issue. For example, if you’re running a local business in Sydney, choosing a web hosting provider that uses Australian servers would guarantee faster page load time. The same goes for businesses in Switzerland or any other region.

These are again rather technical aspects that you need to handle, but whose overall impact may well be worth your time and effort. By making the right decisions about everything from a web hosting package to the design and development team, you can ensure the best performance of your pages and, therefore, a greater number of satisfied users.

Conclusions

Considering the extent to which people nowadays rely on the internet search, it’s unsurprising that they’re increasingly expecting seamless experience on company websites. For website owners, this means that if a website fails to load properly on different devices, your prospects are likely to abandon it and try to find relevant information elsewhere. Obviously, this may translate into a lost revenue, which is certainly a scenario every business wants to avoid.

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How to Enter a Foreign Market

Entering a foreign market can be one of the most exciting stages in the development of your business. Selling your product to a foreign market will mean many fresh challenges as well the opportunity to significantly grow your business. Operating in a foreign country can also diversify your business so that you are no longer exposed to the risk of a single market.

Researching Potential Markets

Before you commit to a foreign market it is important that you research it carefully. It is critical that you look at how the legal system, culture and religious beliefs may impact your business. Many products that are successful in their domestic market struggle in foreign markets due to differences in taste and culture. For example, when KFC entered the Chinese market it had to radically change its menu to meet the local culinary tastes. The Chinese KFC menu includes items that few Americans would recognize including egg tarts, shrimp burgers and soy milk drinks. It has even changed its menu to meet certain regional tastes in the country. By adapting to local tastes KFC has grown the number of its restaurants in China to more than 3,000.

Creating A Plan

The next step should be to create an export plan. This plan will help you to identify the potential risks, barriers to entry as well as opportunities that exist in that market. This plan should include a list of your major competitors and potential partners in this market. You should also establish how you intend to market and distribute your products.

Selling Your Products

Identify how you are going to sell your product in the market that you are entering. One of the most common approaches is to use local sales representatives or distributors. Sales representative typically work on commission and use the sales literature and marketing materials that you provide. Foreign distributor purchase the goods directly from you at a significant discount and then resell them for a profit. Alternatively, you may want to sell directly to end users either through establishing your own retail locations or online.

Franchising And Joint Ventures

Franchising and joint ventures are common approaches to entering a foreign market. When you franchise, you provide local businesses with limited intellectual property rights to your products. You also provide processes that must be followed by your franchisees. Joint ventures involve teaming up with a local business. The two businesses share joint management and control of the new business. This enables to you to share costs as well as benefit from the local business knowledge of their market.

Determining Pricing

Pricing can vary significantly depending on the market you are operating in. One of the most straightforward pricing models is the cost-plus approach. This involves basing your pricing on the cost of goods plus the costs associated with importing the product into the foreign market. While this approach is relatively simple, it has the disadvantage of potentially setting prices which are uncompetitive in the local market. In markets where your product is unique and there is high demand you may be able to price higher than in your domestic market. Another option is to attempt to undercut the local pricing in order to gain market share as quickly as possible.

Foreign Language Website

When you enter a foreign market, you will need to develop a new website for that country. This is particularly important if the market that you are entering speaks a different language to your domestic market. Having a new website will allow you to target the marketing messaging, store locations, contact information and product details to that market. Having a foreign language website created is not complicated, compared to some of the other challenges of entering a new market. One good option is to use a global translation service, (for example, Simple Translation), which specializes in translating websites from one language to another.

Entering a foreign market will often involve a sharp learning curve. You may be required to adapt your current processes and systems for the new market. But the benefits of selling into a foreign market invariably justify these challenges. Businesses that enter foreign markets typically become better diversified and more robust organizations with greater potential for rapid growth.

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